Apologies, I misspoke. I was referring to leverage not delta (already edited the original post). I have built an Excel sheet which uses the IB API and shows me for the interesting part of the options chain a comparison of deltas between a portfolio full of common stock vs. a portfolio fully comprised of the respective option, and the leverage next to it. E.g.
View attachment 620820
In this example (I had to filter because outside market hours, I'm not getting data for all options via IB), a portfolio full of Jun '22 650 CALLs would give me a leverage of ~2.15 vs. common stock for a total delta of 11,633 if I had a portfolio 100% comprised of this instrument. (I would not choose this option because it's too ATM for my taste).
Another criteria I use to select my favorite options is the % premium over the current stock price (e.g., in the example above, a 650 CALL would cost ~$200. With stock price at $660 right now, that'd be a $190 premium, or ~29%... too expensive for my subjective taste). I aim for max. 10% premium.
After having paid a lot of tuition in short-dated OTM CALLs, I came to the conclusion that my goal with dabbling in options is not to get rich in a short period of time. Rather, it's important that I don't shoot myself out of the game by being too aggressive/greedy and blowing up my account (cf all the S&P inclusion plays on this board that went nowhere). Instead, my goal is let the gains compound with an exponent that is higher than the exponent on "just" holding the common stock.
Also, in order to make some money on the side, I'm selling DOTM short-term CALLs against my long LEAP CALLs as long as I deem it "safe" (e.g., the low-volume short trading weeks like now I like).
Thought I'd share my call selling in case you found it useful:
Use 100 leaps as an example that you're long.
Every Monday I sell 20 otm calls at a strike that is 30% higher than the current share price. The expiration will be 32 days out.
I also sell 20 otm calls at the highest avail strike. The expiration will be 32 days out.
The goal is to generate cashflow by selling theta, but minimize the risk of having to give up any core shares. So using this example of 100 leaps I want to have enough buying power utilizing margin to purchase enough shares in case any of these calls gets exercised. I divide 100 by 5 and get 20 (the number of calls I sell). I divide by 5 so that I have a max of 100 sold calls at any given time.
On the off chance the stock takes off I should be able to use margin to buy enough shares to satisfy the 100 exercised calls sold at strikes 30% above current share prices. I am a bit more aggressive by selling an additional 20 calls at the highest avail strike because I believe there's a less than 1% chance they are exercised.
I prefer to sell 20 at a time weekly rather than 100 monthly (or any other time frame) to take advantage of any changes in theta. (Ie. Selling at IV of 66% one week only to miss out if IV increases to 90% over the next two weeks).
Additionally since I have shares and leaps I figure the total long calls or equivalent that I have and divide by five to come to a number of options to sell. 1000 shares and 90 leaps would be equivalent to 100 leaps in regards to this strategy.
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